Lexington Partners

Lexington Partners is a private equity firm that manages secondary private equity and co-investment funds, with origins in the development of the institutional secondary market beginning in the early 1990s. The firm pursues three core strategies: secondaries (acquiring diversified partnership portfolios and GP-led transactions such as continuation vehicles, tender offers, strip sales, and spin-outs), primaries (commitments to newly formed private investment funds across all sectors), and co-investments alongside other private equity sponsors, with activity spanning North America, Europe, Latin America, and Asia-Pacific. Transaction types include secondary fund interest purchases, direct secondary investments, GP-led continuation vehicle transactions, preferred equity transactions, primary fund commitments, and discretionary co-investments, with the firm typically acquiring non-control, passive limited partner-style interests rather than operating control positions. Lexington maintains a database covering more than 950 global sponsors, 3,000 private investment funds, and 50,000 underlying portfolio companies, which it uses in due diligence and pricing for secondary transactions. The firm manages total capital in excess of $55 billion to $76 billion and has acquired more than 4,100 to 5,000 secondary and co-investment interests through over 1,000 transactions since inception. Lexington became a wholly owned subsidiary of Franklin Templeton following a $1.75 billion acquisition completed in 2022, continuing to operate under its existing brand. Founded in 1994 by Brent R. Nicklas, the firm is headquartered in New York, New York, United States, with additional offices in Boston, Menlo Park, London, Hong Kong, Santiago, São Paulo, and Luxembourg.